Putin’s Disappearing Act

A week before his announcement, on September 8th, a close friend of Putin and his former bodyguard, the man considered as a probable successor, the Minister for Emergencies, Mr Yevgeny Zinichev, died in unusual circumstances during an Arctic drill. The head of RT Margarita Simonyan said he died while trying to save a cameraman who fell off a cliff. Perhaps he was targeted as Putin’s successor, said rumours. Just before that, on September 7th, Putin went to a Siberian retreat with his Defence Minister, Mr Shoygu. What did they discuss far away from eavesdroppers? There were rumours that Putin suspected or uncovered a plot against him and preferred to minimise his contacts with the outside world and even with his own bodyguards. A very cautious man, President Putin knows that there are many powerful people and organisations that would like to see him dead and he doesn’t want to give them this satisfaction. For this reason, his enemies call him ‘The Old Man in the Bunker”. Still, Putin appeared on TV from his hideaway.

Alternately, there are precedents of rulers claiming force majeure when they wanted to miss an event or to avoid a meeting.

Likewise, the last Russian Emperor, Tsar Nicolas II learned of the planned demo of peasants and workers who intended to come to the Winter Palace to plead with the Tsar. He decided to stay away from possible trouble and went to his country residence Tsarskoe Selo. His officials machine-gunned the pleaders on the Bloody Sunday. This massacre caused the first Russian revolution of 1905-07, and the Tsar’s absence didn’t help him at all. On a different scale, President Trump went to play golf while his supporters gathered at the White House. It didn’t help him: he had lost the White House and he was accused of illegal actions. In short, staying away is not a good option for the ruler, but it is done, sometimes.

Let us consider this possibility. What could move Putin to do a Phoros-2? Now is a very eventful time and a healthy Putin would have to visit Dushanbe and deal with Russian parliamentary elections, among other things.

Dushanbe Summit

Russo-Chinese Friendship Treaty; then it was postponed because of the Geneva summit, and then just cancelled. Xi was supposed to come to Dushanbe to the SCO summit. When he learned that Putin wouldn’t come, he stayed at home, too. Thus this very important summit of two leaders didn’t materialise. Could it be that Putin does not want to be seen siding with China, in the context of the fateful triangle Washington-Moscow-Beijing? Perhaps. The Russian elites are divided; some prefer close relations with China, and others want to throw Russia’s lot in with the West. Putin is balancing these groups. Who will be first to make a deal with Biden, Putin or Xi? Perhaps Putin prefers to sit it out and allow Xi to try his hand first, at the next summit of the G2.

The physical place of Putin at Dushanbe had been taken by Alexander Lukashenko, the stalwart President of Belarus, and he visibly enjoyed the task. Years ago, after Belarus and Russia entered the Union State agreement, people mused that Lukashenko would lead both states, or at least deal with Russian domestic affairs, too. There was a feeling that Lukashenko would be better for economics, for agriculture, industry and social structure than Putin, who was more involved with foreign affairs. If Russia and Belarus would vote for the president, Belarusians would vote for Putin, while Russians would vote for Lukashenko, it was said jokingly. However, it didn’t happen. Lukashenko managed the Dushanbe session just fine and Putin spoke to them via video link.

There was a report that Rahmon received and entertained Ahmad Massoud, the ‘Panjshir rebel’, and the former vice-president of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh (who declared himself “acting president of Afghanistan”, after the flight of Ghani). It is not clear whether such a meeting actually took place. It may be just one of many examples of fake news from Afghanistan produced by Indian fake news factories. If it were true it would cross the red line in relations between the two neighbouring countries.

Massoud and Saleh found a refuge in Tajikistan; it would be fine for a humanitarian gesture, unless the ambitious Rahmon turns his country into a base in the Afghan civil war.

However, this development wouldn’t justify Putin’s sheltering, unless there are some security issues.

The Russian Parliamentary Elections

Russia will “catch up with, and overtake America”, said Nikita Khrushchev in 1957. The recent (17-19 September, 2021) Parliamentary elections could be seen as a new attempt to catch up with America’s election fraud. The Russians couldn’t overtake the Shining City on the Hill: the last US Presidential elections were so profoundly dishonest that nobody could beat them. But the Russians had a good try.

Russia has a mixed system of electing Parliamentary members: some are elected by a Party list and some by majoritarian system. In the places where people were allowed to vote freely and their voices were decently counted, – mainly in Siberia – the Communists won. Elsewhere, the ruling party United Russia got the seats. They utilised all the methods successfully applied by the US Dems. People were allowed to vote at home and the collecting teams harvested a lot of votes. More people voted than there were registered. The opposition was kept away from the count. The seals of the voting boxes were often broken. But the best method was digital voting, allowed in a few cities including Moscow.

Conclusion

We do not know for sure why Putin decided to claim that he has to self-isolate. It is not totally impossible (though unlikely) that there is indeed an outbreak of Covid. Otherwise, it could be connected with the election uncertainty or with the pending Putin-Xi summit, or, indeed, a plot was discovered. Most probably Putin will emerge out of his shelter by September 29th, for his summit with President Erdogan, as they have much to discuss. But his seclusion won’t gain him brownie points in the eyes of Russians.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

This article was first published at The Unz Review.